Comments on: NOAA Releases Scientific Integrity Plan

By: NOAA Draft Scientific Integrity Memo Leaves Gaps to Fill « Pasco Phronesis

NOAA Draft Scientific Integrity Memo Leaves Gaps to Fill « Pasco Phronesis — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 03:02:14 +0000

[...] since February, and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) has released a copy (H/T The Intersection). PEER has been following these policies closely, having initiated a Freedom of Information Act [...]

By: Chris Mooney

Chris Mooney — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 22:43:50 +0000

Thanks Francesca G — I was scared that was you !

By: Francesca G

Francesca G — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 21:14:36 +0000

FYI – The previous post is not from the Francesca who runs the Scientific Integrity Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. That Francesca knew that NOAA had reached out to its employees and is waiting for the next draft that will incorporate their comments! This draft does not break new ground but it shows NOAA is trying. These are difficult policies to write and let’s not forget – NOAA is limited in its independence by the fact that it must abide by many Department of Commerce policies.

By: Francesca

Francesca — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 19:45:02 +0000

The bad news is that you aren’t doing your due diligence and researching before you write.
I would like for you to know that NOAA reached out to all the Unions representing their employees to provide comments to the policy prior to it being released, so what you will read has been created by and for the employees. Why are you giving PEER some Holier-than-Thou status when they have an agenda to discredit the integrity of our Nation’s scientific agencies? Do you really think this is progressive?

By: Nullius in Verba

Nullius in Verba — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 19:20:13 +0000

It’s a good start, and I agree with the general principles being expressed in the plan. However, it’s evidently still work in progress, and as the critique says, it lacks the detail about the specifics to be able to adjudicate hard cases. However, I don’t think the issues the critique highlights are the most serious or likely problems to arise. You can’t make such rules too detailed, or they will be too inflexible to be applicable in the many situations you haven’t explicitly considered. It will soon devolve to an exercise in hair-splitting legal interpretation to get round the rules rather than following their spirit by understanding their intent.

For example it requires “Disclosure of all research methods used, available data,…”, but does this mean an approximate and incomplete description of the method, or working computer code? Does it mean only smoothed and adjusted data used for plotting the charts presented, or the raw data prior to processing? The intent of the rule is evidently to allow replication, but I’m sure scientists will say it would be odious requirement to have scientists document every line of code so outsiders could then just apply them instantly. A very dangerous precedent is set if any derived quantity calculated from primary data is subject to FOIA requests. Data can be provided for personal use, to trusted colleagues. But don’t pass this along to others without checking first. This is the sort of “dirty laundry” one doesn’t want to fall into the hands of those who might potentially try to distort things. Why should scientists make the data available to critics, when their aim is to try and find something wrong with it? And so on.

But we’ll only find out when it is first applied in practice. That should be interesting.